Author Topic: Light Output Stops  (Read 16270 times)

Offline twooly

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #45 on: December 10, 2013, »
I'm seeing the same thing with the volume, always starts at 214 no matter what I set it to.

I'm glad to give you files/try stuff I can still recreate it in my test setup.  Just let me know how I can help you to try and pin point it. 
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Offline fyb2000

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #46 on: December 10, 2013, »
RJ,
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As far as the quiting It is strange that it would work for 10 days then begin this. When it plays a seq and music file the system works exactly the same time after time. It is a fixed work load device so if it ever plays it should be able to continue to do it everytime. It is clear we will need to research this with the help of those that have seen it in their shows.
I am assuming that the seq files are not cached in memory when a show is playing. They must be streamed from the card as the sequence is played. Some caching of the next few intervals might be done, but not the whole seq file. As you said, the system works exactly the same time after time, that is why I discarded a bad export from the sequencer software, or a bad file on the card. In both cases, it would be behaving badly time after time. But, if a read error occurs from the 'moving parts', I would be interested to know how and if the system tries to recover. The OS for the card reader might just close the file and keep sending 'File not opened' type of errors to the conductor sequencer. It might retry until it's blue in the face but not get anything out of the card…
I am sure there could be other kind of internal errors that could cause this to happen, but this one, because it actually resume operation when starting the next file (and I assume going through a file open system command) makes sense to me from a software engineer perspective.
« Last Edit: December 10, 2013, by fyb2000 »

Offline einstein2883

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #47 on: December 11, 2013, »
I remember I had a problem during the beta testing with the volume somehow going back to 214 every time I started a show.  Sounds like 214 is some kind of magic number. The way I got it to work again was to reload the original FW (use control panel ver 1.5, rebuild show files) and run a show and change the volume.  Then reload the v69 FW (use control panel ver 3) onto it.  After doing that the volume holds where I left it.

I also had a seq not play audio and lockup the conductor this season.  In my case it was always a seq after one seq (I don’t remember the names). So for example say I have seq1, seq2, seq3 and seq4 in a show.  In this example the seq3 would play but seq4 would not.  If I reordered then 3,1,2,4 then seq1 would have a problem.  I finally got it to work by making copy of seq3 to a different file name (seq5) but leaving the original file on the CF card.  Now my show is 1, 2, 5, 4

So it looks like the problem is not file because I copied my file from the card back to its self and it worked.  It must be a card read error that windows can recover from but not the conductor.

Offline fyb2000

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #48 on: December 12, 2013, »
Last night I monitored my show for 2 of the 4 hours it is running, and the problem occurred 3 times. The lights went completely dark during random song, at random points in the songs, while the music will keep playing. I had left the control panel attached, and when the problem happened the second time, I went to 'controls' and paused the dark show. The music paused correctly, and the lights were already OFF. When resuming, the music resumed, but the lights stayed dark.
In each cases, when the next song started, the lights came back correctly.
Without more insights into the code, it is difficult to pinpoint what and from where the problem is coming from, but based on the descriptions of how it occurs, it seems that in some instances, the streaming from the CF card of the .seq file stops, and the system keeps sending packets full of zeroes to the HUBs.
It would be helpful if we could get a feedback of the streaming of the .seq file in the control panel, similar to the time information we are getting for the current performance (something like .seq file read pointer at:xxxx out of yyyy, read errors:zzzz. Last read checksum:aaaa). Having a misbehaving system myself, I would/could do extensive testings on this. That would not tell us why it stopped streaming, if it does, but bring us closer to an understanding, and a solution of this problem.
For tonight show, I will do the same manipulation, without having the control panel opened (well without having the etherdongle connected to the network). Just in case random noise on the network ending up 'confusing' the etd/conductor.
If that doesn't work, tomorrow I will try with a reformatted CF card (the formatting is correct on this one, but some files have been erased/replaced) and a brand new set of files.
If that doesn't work, I will use a different scheduler for the rest of the season.
« Last Edit: December 12, 2013, by fyb2000 »

Offline twooly

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #49 on: December 12, 2013, »
Its like there is some error happening on the conductor that it doesn't know how to handle (memory error of some sort?) and just stops sending output and then picks back up after it has a new command to start a new song. 

I'm willing to share/test anything since I'm not using it now because it seemed to do it more often for me, at least one time a loop of a show (7 songs, ~15 min show)
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Offline rrowan

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #50 on: December 12, 2013, »
My conductor does pretty much what fyb2000 posted. RJ already knows that once the show is done my unit is going to him to test with.
I am using Vixen sequences and xLights to convert them for the conductor. Its been doing that since I was on the beta testers I was suppose to send it before December but life got in the way.

Rick R.
Light Animation Hobby - Having fun and Learning at the same time. (21st member of DLA)
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Warning SOME assembly required

Offline RJ

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #51 on: December 12, 2013, »
No one else on the beta team could duplicate ricks issue so we expected he had a hardware issue. So he was planning to send it to me. Since you are seeing it I do not believe it is hardware.

Sent from my Charge by Tapatalk

RJ
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Offline dcwehw99

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #52 on: December 12, 2013, »
RJ,
Twooly used my Conductor and a spare and saw it on both of them using his sequence and audio files so I would agree that it's not a hardware issue.  Since it's totally random and doesn't always happen in the same song or the same place in a song I would have to guess it's some type of an error condition that's not being anticipated or handled until the next sequence is executed and it resets everything.

Denny

Offline keitha43

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #53 on: December 12, 2013, »
Toward the beginning of the post it was mention it ran a Halloween show without malfunctioning with the older firmware. Does the Christmas show run without problems with the older firmware?

Offline fyb2000

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #54 on: December 12, 2013, »
Rick,
What kind of CF card are you using? What brand, size and speed if it is not coming from one of the COOP?
Do you have your etd/conductor hooked to the network when the show is running?
Have you made any modifications to the files on the card after the previous install/formatting of the card?
So far I am 22 minutes into tonight's show without any dark interludes. Had to launch the control panel, as the show started with the volume at 214, which is too low for my conductor. So went in and out, changed it to 254 and exited (unplugged from the network). So far so good, fingers crossed. I'll report if it misbehaves tonight.
It's torture to be forced to watch all of my sequencing bugs in a loop for 4 hours. Dinner cannot come fast enough…

Offline twooly

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #55 on: December 12, 2013, »
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Toward the beginning of the post it was mention it ran a Halloween show without malfunctioning with the older firmware. Does the Christmas show run without problems with the older firmware?

Yes/No.  I never saw this problem with the lights shutting off randomly but I did have one of the known problems on the old firmware where a show would just stop no matter if it was supposed to continue.   That was the main reason I finally did the upgrade.
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Offline fyb2000

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #56 on: December 13, 2013, »
Of course, could be only a big coincidence, but my show went without any issues for the past 4 hours (I missed only 1/2 hour of it to go eat).
Doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but from now on, I won't have the conductor connected to the network during performances.

Offline RJ

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #57 on: December 13, 2013, »
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Of course, could be only a big coincidence, but my show went without any issues for the past 4 hours (I missed only 1/2 hour of it to go eat).
Doesn't prove anything one way or the other, but from now on, I won't have the conductor connected to the network during performances.

These are the kinds of things that really help when I sit down to work on the software. If it keeps working well off the network it could lead me to an issue that fixes the problem. Keep looking for patterns and when the season is over I will have all of you tell me what you saw so I know where to look for the issue.

RJ
Innovation beats imitation - and it's more satisfying

Offline zwiller

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #58 on: December 13, 2013, »
Being on the beta I never saw any issues described here.  Just throwing this one out there.  A few months ago I created a basic sequence and show for my conductor for testing.  For the last few MONTHS I will just plug in conductor and it will run the show perfectly non stop.  Conductor is not connected to network...  Hope it's that simple. 
Sam, who is happy he flashed his etherdongle with newest firmware!

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Offline twooly

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Re: Light Output Stops
« Reply #59 on: December 13, 2013, »
Looks like I need to test without a network connection since I seem to be the problem person :)
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